Share this story

Charter is killing its home-security service and telling customers that security devices they've purchased will stop working once the service is shut down on February 5.

The impending shutdown and customers' anger at Charter—a cable company also known by the brand name "Spectrum"—has been widely reported over the past month. Over the years, some customers have spent large sums on products that will no longer work.

One user posting on a DSLReports forum said they spent $1,200 on sensors and IP cameras, which will be essentially useless in a couple of weeks. The devices won't connect to other alarm-monitoring services, and Charter will no longer offer the ability to remotely manage the system and view security video. (We're guessing a Charter alarm would still be able to make loud noises when someone breaks into a house, but that doesn't mean it'll work with an alarm-monitoring service.)

Charter partnered with Amazon's Ring and Abode to give customers a free equipment bundle if they buy a year of monitoring, but those deals may not be enough to compensate customers who purchased a lot of devices from Charter over the years. Charter is not providing refunds.

No interoperability

A big question is why there's no way for Charter customers to keep using these devices, given that they rely on the Zigbee specification that allows multi-vendor interoperability for smart-home products. Why can't Charter customers connect their security devices to a Zigbee-enabled smart-home hub or use them with another alarm-monitoring service that supports Zigbee? One user on DSLReports pointed out that years ago, Spectrum devices "were firmware coded to prevent them from being seen and usable within the normal universe of Zigbee devices." But could Charter issue a software update that lets these products work with other Zigbee systems?

We haven't gotten a definitive answer, but it seems that a Zigbee hub alone isn't enough to ensure that Charter's security products work with alarm-monitoring systems offered by other vendors. We asked Charter, and a company spokesperson initially told us the following: "My understanding is that other service providers who use Zigbee have their own devices/software/certification that make those devices non-transferable to someone else's home security solution. That isn't something specific to Charter."

We then contacted the Zigbee Alliance, an industry group that develops standards and certifies products to ensure multi-vendor interoperability. The first answer a Zigbee Alliance spokesperson gave us made it sound like the Charter products should be re-usable with other vendors' Zigbee-enabled systems:

Our team looked into this and the involved Zigbee devices [used by Charter] were sourced through Icontrol and were Zigbee Certified and Icontrol certified. Via a factory reset they can be joined to another hub—so a re-pair process is possible.

(Icontrol Networks' business lines were purchased by Comcast and Alarm.com in March 2017.)

So can Charter customers simply do a factory reset, join their security products to any Zigbee hub, and sign up for another security service? Not quite. Even if there is a factory-reset method available on a particular device, that doesn't mean the reset will make the device compatible with other vendors' systems.

"The answer varies by exact device," the Zigbee Alliance told us. "Each device will have a factory reset method, but what that is varies by manufacturer."

The Zigbee Alliance is trying to solve this problem with its All Hubs Initiative announced in May 2019, which aims to improve interoperability, the spokesperson told us. But it appears that effort won't help Charter customers keep their products running after February 5.

Factory reset won’t help

After the Zigbee Alliance answered our questions, we asked Charter if it's possible for customers to perform a factory reset and pair their devices with non-Charter Zigbee hubs.

Charter's answer included some good news for customers, but not much. What Charter calls "lifestyle devices," such as thermostats and lighting devices, "will work on hubs that support those devices and can be defaulted and re-paired with that hub," Charter told us.

But Charter security devices can't be joined to other security systems, even if they use Zigbee, the company told us. While those thermostats and lights will work with other vendors, "that isn't the case with the security devices such as window and door alarms, which account for the majority of Spectrum Home Security devices," Charter said. "Other home security providers have their own security/alarm devices, software and certifications and those systems wont accept a security device that they haven't tested or certified."

ADT says that its security hub works with Zigbee lights, cameras, thermostats, door locks, and other products, but that "only ADT-monitored security devices can be used for security monitoring with the ADT Security Hub." Charter's system appears to be similarly restricted.

"In this case, Charter probably has hard-coded these devices to only work with its security services," Ars IT Editor Sean Gallagher told me when I asked him to help me make sense of the problem. Although certain products like light bulbs and smart locks are widely compatible across different vendors' hubs, Gallagher also noted that "Zigbee is famously nonstandard as a standard."

Customers lose

While the question of why the products won't work after February 5 is hard to answer, one thing was immediately clear: Charter customers are getting a bad deal.

Charter noted in a statement that it "inherited" the home-security business from Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks when it bought those companies in May 2016. Those acquisition made Charter the second biggest cable provider in the US, but Charter apparently never wanted the home-security service that came with the greatly expanded cable business.

Charter also partnered with Abode on a similar deal that includes an 8-piece kit with four sensors, a gateway, key fob, keypad, and streaming camera when customers buy one year of monitoring for $179. Abode says its standard yearly price is $200, but it's currently on sale for $100 even if you're not a Spectrum customer.

"We are dedicated to making this a smooth transition for our Home Security customers and have partnered with Ring and Abode, two leading home security providers, to bring our customers exclusive offers and discounts on replacement security service and products," Charter said in a statement.

It's not clear how many Charter customers use the home-security service. The company said that the shutdown "impacts a very small number of Spectrum's customers" because Charter stopped marketing the service in 2016. (Charter has 28.7 million total customers across its cable TV, broadband, and phone businesses.)

The Ring and Abode deals may be enough to satisfy some Charter customers. But some say these deals won't replace all the equipment they've purchased over the years.

Steve Rottinghouse, a longtime Spectrum security customer who was profiled by KSBY News in Central California this month, said he "spent almost $900 for cameras, motion sensors, door sensors, window sensors, and a thermostat." But he said the deals offered through Ring and Abode would replace only "a fraction of the setup he has here in his house, and [that] he will have to spend hundreds of dollars more to build a similar Ring security system," KSBY reported.

"I called [Charter] and asked if I can get a credit toward my phone bill or cable bill," Rottinghouse told the news station. "And they said no."

This is why with IoT and similar technologies I go with the philosophy "Lease me a service or sell me the device, not both".

If you are being forced to buy the device and lease the service, then your investment in the hardware depends completely on the service company agreeing to their part of the contract or not going bankrupt, since the hardware is usually tied to them. If you are just leasing the service, then there is very little care about dead hardware and hardware sold with interoperability in mind provides the potential for changing provider on a whim.

Also, being able to work off-grid is also reassurance that it keeps on working in the absence of a service provider or internet connection.

My mother is one of their legacy customers. I am very much trying to steer her away from Ring, with the Neighborhood nonsense. It doesn't surprise me that they're cutting it, but it does suck. My mother is the sort to never look at bills, and would never call up and complain, so I'd be surprised if she's not paying $300 a month for TV/internet/phone/security...and won't know if her bill goes down. I've already let her know I'm going to help her make a shift when the time comes.

Which also means I'm going to get to call up Charter and do the "yeah, so we're canceling our service"..."oh, you have a special offer for us?..."no, I don't think that sounds good enough"...."oh there's one more discount you can throw in?" dance while I'm at it.

This has nothing to do with what party is in power. Most of the moves to forced obsolescence, lack of security updates to break devices, hardware as a subscription, and ____ As A Service moves happened under the last president, and he was all about backing the tech industry.

This all derives from the massive drops in PC sales which followed the success of Windows XP and to a lesser extent, Win 7, which enabled consumers to go for longer periods of time without upgrading. Software, SaaS, IaaS, and similar to keep consumers hostage is all a result of needing to defend against products lasting too long. It's the your (grand)parents had a Kenmore or Maytag washing machine last over 25 years cliche. Engineering of software and appliances has tossed all ethics and quality out the door in order to preserve positive year on year comparable sales.

But could Charter issue a software update that lets these products work with other Zigbee systems?

Is this rhetorical? Even if we assume for the moment that other providers would let the gear work - which the article seems to indicate is not the case - it would be extremely uncommon for an organization exiting a business to go back to vendors for new firmware. Especially if they put a stop sell/ replacements only on it 4 years ago.

There’s no way the gear is still under warranty - either customer or vendor facing - and would likely be 100% cost + work. I doubt it’s something Charter can solve internally.

I'd honestly like to see the TOS of these devices. Do they have a "discontinuation of service" statement in it that has the consumer agree that they are not liable for any damages or financial loss if the service was cut?

I mean, my guess is that there is such a statement, and if so, the customers are out of luck.

I got the basic security service from TWC when I moved a few years ago, and it was awful, mostly because of a motion sensor that ate 8 AA's a month and would trigger an alarm because it was running out of juice (which at worst involved a call to my dad if an outside area code tried to call me about an alarm). I canceled the service almost immediately after Charter bought them out, and the CS rep was rather clear that the service's days were numbered. Doesn't surprise me this is being done; I'm just wondering what took so long.

Note that I do feel sympathetic to those who spent thousands on the equipment, but my anecdotal experience tells me the service was never good.

Because it's a valid contract, as much as people hate it. They might promise [x] years of support, but I'd doubt that any of their contracts guaranteed that they'd provide service for 4 years (they stopped selling new accounts in 2016). So any guarantees have likely expired.

There's no real reason that a service contract that doesn't specify how long the service will be continued for, or which term has expired, would be illegal to terminate, provided adequate notice. If you sign a service contract to wash someone's car for $10 a week, every week, and you get a better job, as long as you don't accept payment for services you don't provide, people can't force you to wash their car. We have relatively strong laws preventing people from being forced to do work against their will.

They likely knew they were going to cancel this back in 2016, and, now that any promises have been fulfilled or a reasonable time has passed, they're stopping the services. That's not illegal, and shouldn't be.

They're a private company. They can decide to innovate new products or discontinue old products as they see fit.

What if McDonalds decided that McNuggets aren't selling, should they be forced to keep selling them?

Is anyone saying they should be forced to keep selling?

But simply discontinuing service without even the courtesy of a firmware unlock is bullshit.

From reading the article, apparently you can do a factory reset on the devices and erase any firmware lock to the Charter system. That does not help if none of their competitors support the devices on their networks.

The issue with Zigbee and lets even say Z-Wave products. While it's an open standard. The devices themselves might be on closed source code.

So in order to communicate with them you have to know how they talk back. So some "proprietary" units. Dev's have reversed how they talk and on certain home automation controllers you can add in external code to tell your controller how to talk to devices that aren't known by the manufacturer. There is no Firmware lock. The way to talk to the device is not available to the public.

Like Samsung sells their Smartthings division product to ADT. However not all ADT products will work on regular SmartThings units because they have proprietary handles.

They're a private company. They can decide to innovate new products or discontinue old products as they see fit.

What if McDonalds decided that McNuggets aren't selling, should they be forced to keep selling them?

Is anyone saying they should be forced to keep selling?

But simply discontinuing service without even the courtesy of a firmware unlock is bullshit.

So they should be forced against their will to invest resources they may not have in creating a new product that will benefit others (possibly competition to future products) but not them?

Yes?

I would go further in fact. We should amend federal law such that Charter is barred from holding copyrights.

Not just charter, really. Any company that uses copyright law to prevent people from using a tangible item they own in a way that is unrelated to copying and redistributing a creative work should be branded a copyright abuser, be forced to remove any artificial technological controls they have enabled, and be barred from holding a federal copyright.

The current federal laws that grant copyright holders the ability to define their own rights far beyond the scope of what congress granted them indirectly through technical means that are themselves protected by copyright are a massive government overreach, and entirely unconstitutional.

People should be allowed to re-purpose these devices that they paid for without breaking the law. Period. And if a third party is in the way of that (Charter) then they should be held financially liable for getting out of the way.

Smart devices are fine. The problem is with 3rd party companies owning the services they provide or being able to brick the devices if they decide to pull the plug. Buy your own stuff, own your own info. It isn't tough or expensive, but people are too lazy to do it themselves or uneducated enough about these products/services to know any better.